Background: Pharmacotherapy is considered an evidenced-based treatment for anxious youth. There is a need to better understand the relation between medication adherence and child outcomes. Objective: This study prospectively examined:1) baseline predictors of adherence and 2) the relation between medication adherence and clinical outcomes in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders. Methods: Participants were 349 youth randomized to sertraline, pill placebo, or sertraline plus cognitive behavioral therapy in the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS) and followed over 12 weeks...

Background: Offspring of anxious parents are at increased risk for developing anxiety disorders. There is a need to identify which youth are at greatest risk for disorder onset in this population. Objective: This study prospectively examined several theory-based family and parent characteristics (e. g., family conflict, parental over-control, parental psychopathology) as predictors of anxiety disorder onset in children whose parents were clinically anxious. Methods: Families were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial evaluating a familybased preventative intervention, relative to an information monitoring control condition, for offspring of anxious parents (N= 136; child mean age 8...

Background: School climate can promote students' academic achievement and high educational aspirations. School climate refers to the quality and character of school life, norms, values, social interactions and organizational processes within a school. Objective: We examined for the present sample whether (a) school climate relates to academic achievement and educational aspirations and (b) such relations vary for Roma minority compared to their majority peers. Method: Participants in this cross-sectional study were 356 adolescents aged 11-19 years old (159 Roma, 197 Bulgarian majority), 332 mothers (149 Roma, 183 majority), 231 fathers (104 Roma, 127 majority) and 221 majority teachers who completed self-report surveys to address the study goals...

Background: Aggression in residential youth care institutions is a frequent problem. Objective: The present short-term longitudinal study examined individual and institutional predictors of aggression in a group of 198 adolescents placed in open, semi-secure and secure residential institutions from the perspective of the importation and deprivation model. Methods: A total of 198 adolescents in residential youth care filled in questionnaires regarding group climate and aggression with a 3 month interval...

Background: Previous studies have shown that social climate in therapeutic residential youth care (TRC) is important to the welfare of residents, staff, and assessing treatment outcomes. The most influential theory on social climate in residential settings is the theory of Moos. The measurement of the concepts and aspects of this theory using the Community Oriented Programs Environment Scale (COPES) has repeatedly been criticized regarding usability, validity, and reliability, especially for TRC...

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health problems in youth, and faulty interpretation bias has been positively linked to anxiety severity, even within anxiety-disordered youth. Quick, reliable assessment of interpretation bias may be useful in identifying youth with certain types of anxiety or assessing changes on cognitive bias during intervention. OBJECTIVE: This study examined the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Self-report of Ambiguous Social Situations for Youth (SASSY) scale, a self-report measure developed to assess interpretation bias in youth...

BACKGROUND: Previous research suggests that it is important to use parental reports when assessing children's anxiety, but it remains unclear to what extent there are differences between mothers' and fathers' scores and whether these potential differences have any repercussions for the psychometric properties of the scale being used. OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to investigate parental differences on the Parent version of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders-Revised (SCARED-RP), a rating scale for measuring child anxiety symptoms...

BACKGROUND: Although callous-unemotional (CU) traits have been associated with bullying among children and adolescents, relatively little is known about whether each of the three sub-constructs of CU traits-callous, uncaring, and unemotional-are associated with bullying when they are considered concurrently in the analysis. OBJECTIVE: This study was the first to examine in a single model whether callous, uncaring, and unemotional traits are directly related to the perpetration of bullying and to harm-effect moral reasoning in bullying among children as well as whether these three CU traits are indirectly related to bullying mediated by harm-effect moral reasoning...

OBJECTIVE: Therapist adherence is a quality indicator in routine clinical care when evaluating the success of the implementation of an intervention. The current study investigated whether therapist adherence mediates the association between therapist, team, and country-wide experience (i.e. number of years since implementation in the country) on the one hand, and treatment outcome on the other hand. We replicated and extended a study by Löfholm et al. (2014). METHOD: Data over a 10-year period were obtained from 4290 adolescents (12-17 years) with antisocial or delinquent problem behavior, who were treated with Multisystemic Therapy (MST) by 222 therapists, working in 27 different teams in the Netherlands...

BACKGROUND: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and depression are common among adolescents, frequently comorbid, and resistant to change. Prevention programs for adolescent SAD are scant, and depression prevention programs do not fully address peer-risk factors. One critical peer-risk factor for SAD and depression is peer victimization. We describe the development and initial evaluation of a transdiagnostic school-based preventive intervention for adolescents with elevated symptoms of social anxiety and/or depression and elevated peer victimization...

BACKGROUND: The environments where parents spend time, such as at work, at their child's school, or with friends and family, may exert a greater influence on their parenting behaviors than the residential neighborhoods where they live. These environments, termed activity spaces, provide individualized information about the where parents go, offering a more detailed understanding of the environmental risks and resources to which parents are exposed. OBJECTIVE: This study conducts a preliminary examination of how neighborhood context, social processes, and individual activity spaces are related to a variety of parenting practices...

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders in youth are among the most common psychiatric disorders, yet the majority of affected youth do not receive treatment. One approach to improving access to care is identification and intervention within the primary care setting. OBJECTIVE: This manuscript presents data from a single group pre-post open trial of the Anxiety Action Plan (AxAP), a brief pediatrician-delivered intervention to reduce anxiety in youth who present in the primary care setting...

BACKGROUND: A large number of children are currently living in Alternative Care. The relationship they establish with their temporary caregivers can play a significant role in their development. However, little has been published regarding attachment with temporary Caregivers. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this review is to analyse the existing published studies regarding attachment styles in children living in alternative care (Children's Homes and Foster Care). The review analyses rates of attachment styles and associated factors (including characteristics of settings, children and caregivers) in both settings...

BACKGROUND: The childcare environment offers a wide array of developmental opportunities for children. Providing children with a feeling of security to explore this environment is one of the most fundamental goals of childcare. OBJECTIVE: In the current study the effectiveness of Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting-Child Care (VIPP-CC) was tested on children's wellbeing in home-based childcare in a randomized controlled trial. METHODS: Forty-seven children and their caregivers were randomly assigned to the intervention group or control group...

BACKGROUND: Families exposed to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina are at risk for numerous adverse outcomes. While previous literature suggests that the degree of disaster exposure corresponds with experiencing negative outcomes, it is unclear if parents and children report similar levels of disaster exposure. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper was to examine levels of disaster stressor agreement among mother-child dyads affected by Hurricane Katrina, and to examine whether discrepancies in disaster stressor reports are associated with higher levels of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms...

BACKGROUND: High impact experiences following a natural disaster have been shown to influence later psychopathology. Individual-level factors such as age may also contribute to a disaster's impact on mental health, though it is unclear whether young age confers a protective effect or represents a period of increased risk as compared to adulthood. OBJECTIVE: The present study evaluated the influence of adolescent age and hurricane experiences on mental health in the years following multiple hurricanes in the New Orleans region...